AAA - The Sound of Beer - Brett and the Chocolate Factory

So I had my first Australian anxiety attack last night. It was during the party. It was too crowded outside and there were around 100 or so people. Nobody was talking to me for all of 30 seconds and I started getting very uncomfortable. I went in and out a few times. I stayed in and made myself dinner. There wasn't really any options for me at the bbq. A few people were like "Oh, but theres salad." WTF? I don't want salad. Vegans don't live off of salads. Jeez. I ended up asking my roommate if I could tap into his bourbon to solve my worries. It certainly helped. After a couple b&cokes things picked up. I met a whole mess of really nice girls from Hong Kong who were of course dazzled by the handful of things I can say in Cantonese. I also met a Japanese girl who pleased me greatly by only speaking Japanese to me. After 3 or 4 drinks, Traci made me a rather strong Vodka and Orange which I had to down rather quickly so we could goto the campus bar for study abroad night. I was pretty blasted and drank a number of beers. It was mostly girls and I had a really good time. Sometimes its ok to drown your anxiety. But I really wish I had some ('ahem) Zoloft so I didn't have to! When I got back to the international house I went over to Rebecca's place for a while and she fed me some peanut butter and jelly. Haven't had one of those in eons. As I stumbled home out of there I came across a number of people outside. One girl was very drunk and rolling around on the picnic table. Meanwhile people were pouring beer all over her. In her eyes, ears, clothes, etc. It was funny, but kind of pitiful at the same time.

Today I went to the this "chocolate factory" in the city with my Japanese club and a few girls from the IH. It turned out to not be a factory at all, but a shop that sells choclate. Not terribly interesting as I don't eat such things. After that we went to a couple wine-tastings and had lunch before a bit of shopping. It was pretty fun and I made a few Korean friends.

There is a some sort of Vietnamese party going outside at the moment and I'd like to join, but I don't really know any of them. I'll get out there shortly.

Today's pic is of Andrew, Stephen, Dave and myself in London. My hair is getting kind of shaggy and I'm debating going back to the shaved style.

London 

What does go on? Barbecue Jam?

Yea so there is some barbecue on the compound tonight. There will be promotional videos being filmed so they can lure other unsuspecting foreigners into their evil clutches! I will be sure to use subterfuge to avoid the camera catching me enjoying myself.

I'm still sick it seems. Flu-like pains hit me again yesterday. Its been nearly two weeks. Will I ever shake this?

Yesterday I went and bought a ton of crap for making sushi. Got a few people together for vegetarian sushi night on Monday. I'm psyched!

I've made 3 cents so far from banner clicks. If some of you would be so kind to click the banners on occasion, perhaps someday I can afford to buy a digital camera! Then I could offer pictures related to what I babble about. Ah, what magical times that would bring. Thanks for your support!

Time to go eat, study and exercise! Here is todays picture. Please contain your excitement. Well it is kinda funny.


I got this from Rob a while back.  

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What goes on?

Alright so I really can't stand having housemates. I also can't stand that everyone here calls housemates sharemates. It almost makes me feel less certain about my continuous agitated state which is at least partially due to the fact that I am the only person that has bought dish soap, toilet paper, paper towels, salt, pepper, garlic, and garbage bags. I'm not sure if its written somewhere that these things are supposed to be communal items or not and I certainly don't mind if they are, but perhaps we could communally pay for them or something? Blaargh!! Ants! Somebody isn't cleaning up after themselves. If I wasn't already crazy, these things would surely drive me insane!

Ok onto friendlier topics. I forced Kilian and Tina (Germans living within the compound) to watch Star Wars IV last night. I was appalled to discover that they had in fact never seen any of the original SW movies. What kind of deprived childhood they must have had growing up deep inside the rainforests of Germany. Next, I think they may need a burst of Indiana Jones! After I've reeducated them to my way of thinking (as far as necessary movies go), perhaps I will give them a few dabs of Yojimbo or something interesting. Finally, I'll release them back into the wild so they can spread there newfound knowledge and abilities.

As I am writing this post I am going back and forth with an email to Pop, the most recent target of my affections. Writing letters in other langauges is a rather time-consuming task for one as anxious as myself. It would also help if I could concentrate on one thing for more than 3 minutes. Although as far as studying multiple subjects goes, that works brilliantly! But it does really make it difficult to write an email to someone. I can't always express what I want to say and I either need to say something easier, or I need to take a shot at saying something wrong. While I recognize that making mistakes is commonly believed to be necessary in learning a language, I prefer not to make any. Well thats not entirely true. It might be more accurate to say that it is extremely difficult for me to allow myself to say anything with even the smallest chance of being wrong. [Where is my Zoooooloft Jenny!! Mwahaha.] Here is a moving letter I wrote to my Latvian love of ages past. Its page 1 of 2 mind you. If anybody really wants to see the rest, just leave a comment and I'll give you the next page.


Letter to Polina - Page 1 

Thats all of my ramblings for the moment. I think its almost time for me to start posting Arabic lessons. I will do it from the absolute basics (as soon as I can figure out how to type it) if anyone wants to learn how to read/write. It doesn't seem that difficult actually.

Polyglot Indeed -- Misc Picture Post - Gmail

What the hell were they doing? 

Perhaps I won't drop Indonesian after all. My tutorials for Arabic and Indo went quite well. I was worried about the time necessary to keep up, but pulled it off very smoothly. Chinese class was boring as hell. I sat next to this one guy who is fluent in Chinese and taking it for easy credits. On the other side of me was a Chinese-Indonesian who can read and write fairly well and speaks far better then I do. She seems pretty cool though. She was impressed with my Indonesian of course.

I suppose I can probably handle this workload. I put in my application for my work visa. Hopefully it won't take too long. I be needin 'da K@$4.

I don't know if its this way for everyone these days, but I have a seemingly unlimited supply of Gmail invites. If anybody needs an account just give me a holler.

Speaking of Indonesian, (well I was earlier) why don't I give you a run down of what I'm supposed to be able to use fluently tomorrow. Both sides of the following conversation. I have to be able to mix expressions/words with similar meanings and not just memorize the text. Here goes.

Ani - Selamat siang, Bu Indah. Mau ke mana?

Indah - Mau belanja. Ani juga belanja di sini?

Ani - Ya, rumah saya dekat sini.

Indah - Di mana?

Ani - Di Jalan Nuri. Dekat kantor pos. Rumah Ibu di mana, ya?

Indah - Ruma saya di Jalan Meltati. Dekat rumah Pak Budi.

Ani - O begitu... Permisi dulu, Bu. Saya mau ke rumah.

Indah - Mau ikut ke pasar?

Ani - Terima kasih, Bu. Saya mau ke rumah.

Indah - Mari. Sampai bertemu lagi.

Nice eh?

Langauge Woes - New Digs - Family Matters

My music class kicks ass. Its like honours kindergarten. Its nice to see teachers that actually know how to efficiently pass on information.

Well I have an hour and seven minutes until I have my first Indonesian tutorial. I haven't learning anything in class yet I am supposed to be fluent. The odds aren't so good. I'll let you know what happens.

As you can see there are some new things on the site. I put a search bar, feed link (so you can just subscribe to see when I update rather then waste your time checking manually) and a few text ads. I'm like to do some major renovations on the whole site layout by hand, but I don't know when/if I'll have time to do that. Please leave a comment if you feel the site is starting to get too cluttered or anything. Color suggestions are also welcomed.

On Somethingawful.com for March 7th, there was a post about Jamie Foxxworth, the youngest daughter from Family Matters who mysteriously vanished from the show after the fourth season. Seems she ended up in porn after that. Nice!

In related SA news, March 7ths Awful Link of the Day is to Minimac, some kid who draws comics. While the art isn't terribly impressive, I thought the most recent one was pretty funny. Watcha think??